Soccer Dad

No runs, no hits, plenty of errors

In his column yesterday, the NYT's public editor, Clark Hoyt asserted:

By my count, The Times has published more tough articles on Obama, 20, than on McCain, 13, since the beginning of last year. I have posted links to the stories on my blog, The Public Editor's Journal, and you can decide for yourself.

Before then he inserted this precious tidbit:

Until Thursday, when The Times published a front-page article on Biden's lifestyle and personal finances, he seemed like a forgotten candidate, while three tough articles about Palin had been on the front page. (Several readers called the Biden piece a "hit" and charged that The Times wrote it only to even the score because Republicans were complaining.)

Republicans were complaining? Why might that be? Could it be that one of the articles about McCain was what Republicans called a hit piece and that Hoyt himself observed:

I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room. A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.

So when Hoyt's giving the overview of the "tough" articles written about each candidate, he doesn't even own up to the one about McCain that even he found wanting? And he only refers to the Times's overreach by implication!

Hoyt also gives an overview of a number of the tough pieces about McCain including.

They included reports on the hasty, last-minute vetting of Palin, distortions or misstatements of fact in McCain's television ads, and his love of gambling and ties to the industry.

Uh that vetting process? OK, it was covered by the Washington Post earlier and it sounded that McCain's people did vet her pretty thoroughly, but secretly. Apparently it's an article of faith at the NYT that if the Times didn't know about it didn't happen. But the Times's editorial position, which just happens to coincide with the Obama campaign's position, is that the choice of Palin was reckless and a poor reflection on McCain.

However this is what someone at the McCain campaign had to say about the NYT's vetting story.

The story, my campaign source told me, is "materially false." Gov. Palin, the strategist said, was subjected to a "complete vet." "That included her filling out a 70-question questionnaire that was highly intrusive and personal. She was then interviewed for more than three hours by A.B. Culvahouse. There were multiple follow-up interviews."

(h/t Neo Neocon)

So Hoyt boasts about a story that the McCain campaign dismisses as inaccurate. (Sure the McCain campaign would say that. Of course the McCain campaign also provided the details of the vetting process so it makes the NYT's assertion look silly.)

I looked at Hoyt's blog about the 20 tough pieces on Obama and 13 on McCain. I'm not going to go through them all, but given the centrality of Jeremiah Wright to Obama's political career and the fact that Hoyt boasted that the Times mentioned Wright before most Americans had heard about him, let's go to that first Wright story, titled "A candidate, his pastor and the search for faith."

Twenty years ago at Trinity, Mr. Obama, then a community organizer in poor Chicago neighborhoods, found the African-American community he had sought all his life, along with professional credibility as a community organizer and an education in how to inspire followers. He had sampled various faiths but adopted none until he met Mr. Wright, a dynamic pastor who preached Afrocentric theology, dabbled in radical politics and delivered music-and-profanity-spiked sermons.

Few of those at Mr. Wright's tribute in March knew of the pressures that Mr. Obama's presidential run was placing on the relationship between the pastor and his star congregant. Mr. Wright's assertions of widespread white racism and his scorching remarks about American government have drawn criticism, and prompted the senator to cancel his delivery of the invocation when he formally announced his candidacy in February.

Mr. Obama, a Democratic presidential candidate who says he was only shielding his pastor from the spotlight, said he respected Mr. Wright's work for the poor and his fight against injustice. But "we don't agree on everything," Mr. Obama said. "I've never had a thorough conversation with him about all aspects of politics."

It is hard to imagine, though, how Mr. Obama can truly distance himself from Mr. Wright. The Christianity that Mr. Obama adopted at Trinity has infused not only his life, but also his campaign. He began his presidential announcement with the phrase "Giving all praise and honor to God," a salutation common in the black church. He titled his second book, "The Audacity of Hope," after one of Mr. Wright's sermons, and often talks about biblical underdogs, the mutual interests of religious and secular America, and the centrality of faith in public life.

After soft pedaling Wright's views as "scorching remarks about American government have drawn criticism" the Times did little to question how much of Wright's dogma Obama embraced. It acknowledges that Obama would have a difficult time distancing himself from Wright. But failing to provide the toxicity of some of Wright's beliefs, the article can hardly be said to be tough on Obama. And of course the article makes every effort to show that Obama was drawn, not to his Wright's fiery words, but his generous actions:

Mr. Obama had never met a minister who made pilgrimages to Africa, welcomed women leaders and gay members and crooned Teddy Pendergrass rhythm and blues from the pulpit. Mr. Wright was making Trinity a social force, initiating day care, drug counseling, legal aid and tutoring. He was also interested in the world beyond his own; in 1984, he traveled to Cuba to teach Christians about the value of nonviolent protest and to Libya to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, along with the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Mr. Wright said his visits implied no endorsement of their views.

And note how the article allows Wright to deny that he didn't endorse the views of Qaddafi or Farrakhan without looking for any evidence that the denial may have been (and likely was) insincere.

By contrast look at this excerpt from an adoring article about Obama from Rolling Stone, originally titled "The Radical Roots of Barack Obama."

The Trinity United Church of Christ, the church that Barack Obama attends in Chicago, is at once vast and unprepossessing, a big structure a couple of blocks from the projects, in the long open sore of a ghetto on the city's far South Side. The church is a leftover vision from the Sixties of what a black nationalist future might look like. There's the testifying fervor of the black church, the Afrocentric Bible readings, even the odd dashiki. And there is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a sprawling, profane bear of a preacher, a kind of black ministerial institution, with his own radio shows and guest preaching gigs across the country. Wright takes the pulpit here one Sunday and solemnly, sonorously declares that he will recite ten essential facts about the United States. "Fact number one: We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he intones. "Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!" There is thumping applause; Wright has a cadence and power that make Obama sound like John Kerry. Now the reverend begins to preach. "We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. . . . We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. . . . We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. . . . We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!" The crowd whoops and amens as Wright builds to his climax: "And. And. And! GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS S***!"

This is as openly radical a background as any significant American political figure has ever emerged from, as much Malcolm X as Martin Luther King Jr. Wright is not an incidental figure in Obama's life, or his politics. The senator "affirmed" his Christian faith in this church; he uses Wright as a "sounding board" to "make sure I'm not losing myself in the hype and hoopla." Both the title of Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope, and the theme for his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 come from Wright's sermons. "If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from," says the Rev. Jim Wallis, a leader of the religious left, "just look at Jeremiah Wright."

I'd argue that this is harder hitting than the Times piece. It lets us know exactly what Wright's views are and makes no apology that Barack Obama chose Wright's church for his own because of the politics. The Times, in contrast, finesses the issue of Obama's political views and casts his choice of church as a matter of defining his faith, not necessarily his politics. The Times in that "tough" piece was seeking to diffuse possible criticism of its favored candidate.

Clark Hoyt wants us to trust him (and his paper) that they were tougher with Obama than with McCain because there were more "tough" articles about Obama. But the one Obama article I checked out was hardly tough.

It's like a batter was asked how his game was and he says that he made contact 33 times. Now some of those could be foul balls and some could be grand slams. Hoyt's criteria for "tough" is no more meaningful than "I made contact."

Perhaps a different standard could apply: The Times is tougher on whichever candidate its own public editor acknowledges distorts more.

Similar thoughts at Cheat Seeking Missiles.